A man in a white van circled an early voting site in Loxahatchee, Florida, and shouted antisemitic and racist slurs at a group of people campaigning outside. A man who went to vote in Orangeburg, South Carolina, brawled with election workers after he was asked to remove his Trump hat. A man in Tempe, Arizona, was arrested for shooting up a DNC office three times.
These are just some of the disturbing incidents that have taken place in the last ten days alone.
WIRED is tracking how disinformation and heightened political rhetoric is spilling out into the real world as Election Day nears, manifesting in the form of acts of sabotage, intimidation, and violence. Please reach out via this form with tips.
Authorities are on high alert for election-related violence this year. Since 2020, election workers have faced a constant barrage of threats, harassment and stalking at such a level that the DOJ formed a special division just to investigate those types of threats. A series of intelligence memos reported by WIRED indicate that officials are bracing for potential chaos and sabotage from “insider threats,” as well as possible attacks on voting infrastructure for the 2024 US election. The V-Dem Institute, a political science think-tank based in Sweden which takes a data-driven approach to measuring and conceptualizing democracies around the world, put out a report that predicted a “relatively high likelihood of electoral violence” for the election.
We’ve compiled a total of 13 recent confirmed incidents so far, and we’ll keep updating as we go.
10/22/2024 — Tempe, Arizona
Jeffrey Michael Kelly, 60, was arrested and detained on terrorism charges in connection for three shootings outside a Democratic National Committee office over the course of two weeks in late September. Police said he also affixed razor blades and bags of white powder labeled “biohazard” to anti-Democrat signs erected around his home. They discovered 250,000 rounds of ammo, 120 firearms, and a grenade launcher when they searched his home, and believe he was prepping for a “mass casualty event.”
10/23/2024 — Phoenix, Arizona
A USPS box was set on fire, and approximately 20 mail-in ballots were damaged. Dieter Klofkorn, 35, was taken into custody on suspicion of arson. His motive is not currently known.
10/24/2024 — Loxahatchee, Florida
A group of people were campaigning for a Jewish local Democratic candidate outside a public library, which was an early voting site. Nicholas Farley, 30, allegedly drove around the site in a white van shouting antisemitic and racist slurs at the campaigners. Later, when questioned by deputies, Farley touted the name of a neo-Nazi website, continued to make racist and antisemitic remarks, and said he uses those slurs towards anyone who “commits crime and don’t support America and patriots like him,” the Palm Beach Post reported.
10/24/2024 — San Antonio, Texas
Jesse Lutzenberger, 63, allegedly repeatedly assaulted an elderly election worker at a polling place who repeatedly asked him to remove his MAGA hat. He’s since been charged with injury to an elderly person. One recurring flashpoint for violence appears to be state laws that bar voters from wearing political attire to polling places (21 states have such laws on the books).
10/25/2024 — Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Election workers flagged more than 2,500 mail-in ballots as fraudulent. The ballots contained names of candidates from different political parties, and officials suspect that they were sent in as part of a coordinated operation to erode trust in the voting process. The incident is under investigation.
10/26/2024 — Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
GOP headquarters in Montgomery County received a bomb threat. State police are investigating.
10/28/2024 — Vancouver, Washington & Portland, Oregon
Ballot drop-boxes in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon, were set on fire using incendiary devices. A third, undetonated device was found by another drop-box in Vancouver. Investigators say that signs saying “Free Gaza” were discovered nearby, but cautioned that those shouldn’t necessarily be an indication of motive as the suspect could have left them to deflect blame towards leftists.
10/28/2024 — Delaware County, Pennsylvania
MAGA activist Val Biancaniello was taken into custody for disruptive and belligerent behavior that seemed intended to influence other voters while waiting in line at a polling place. Video of Biancaniello being arrested went viral, and the GOP are claiming that it’s evidence of “voter suppression” targeting Trump supporters.
10/28/2024 — Redding, California
A landlord was fired from his position after bragging in a post on Reddit that he was using ballots belonging to former tenants to cast additional votes for Trump. The local District Attorney told Action News Now that she’s weighing criminal charges.
10/29/2024 — Neptune Beach, Florida
Caleb James Williams, 18, showed up to an early voting location with a group of young men, holding a Trump sign and brandishing a machete towards a group of female Harris voters. He’s facing aggravated assault charges.
10/30/2024 — Champaign, Illinois
A fight at a polling place broke out when an election worker told a man in a Trump hat that he wasn’t allowed to wear political merchandise while voting. The man reportedly pulled out a camera and started recording the election worker, and then got into an altercation with another voter.
10/30/2024 — Orangeburg, South Carolina
A man wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” hat was told he couldn’t vote at his polling place while wearing it. Video shows that he quickly became aggressive, a fight broke out, and he launched towards poll workers, mostly Black women. Some workers had to pin back his arms to prevent him from striking their colleagues.
10/30/2024 — Westminster, Maryland
An election leader successfully obtained a “peace order” against a local GOP official and activist who was reportedly harassing election workers during early voting.
WIRED also noted several arrests for incidents that took place prior to our dataset’s timeframe (starting October 21). On October 21, the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force unsealed an indictment charging a Pennsylvania man who threatened a state political party representative who was recruiting poll watchers. The affiliation or identity of the party representative was not revealed in court documents, but investigators say that the suspect threatened to hunt and skin him alive.
On October 29, Madison County authorities in Indiana arrested Larry L Savage Jr., 51, a former GOP candidate for U.S. Rep, for stealing several election ballots during a voting machine test, and then trying to spread disinformation online about the machines being faulty.
